Bovine Lumina
There was no promise of awesome power or mercy in the world. On Earth, God beheld all humans as equal.
But what if you weren't human? Both literally and metaphorically.
This particular magus was a mystery - her success the providence of neither hard work nor inborn talent.
Indeed, there wasn't anything that seemed like it would be the origin of this insane, post-divine miracle; no analysis or spell could yield a proper result, and even Enoch himself admitted with an awkward scratching of the brow that he didn't have the faintest clue how this could happen.
The magus never introduced herself to anyone, never made acquaintances, and never participated in conversation. To ask her a question was pointless, to strike up a conversation meaningless.
She would disturb her classmates with constant singing back in Terrascape, necessitating the use of spellcraft to silence her, but also with extreme delicacy to not upset her.
Since she'd never named herself, the world named her instead:
Dancing Polish Cow.
No matter where, or when, the Dancing Polish Cow would always dance and emit an uninterrupted broadcast of an unknown song. Make no mistake; its cheerful outer demeanor was only an illusion; a sign of seeming, a falsehood daubed in black with white spots.
It was a cold and soulless creature; its upperclassmen learned on the day of its auspicious arrival not to upset it. Its rage was a terrible, earthshaking thing.
All of Governance nearly fell to its might when someone with a magical arm pulled the udder hoping to get milk. The entire campus may well have been annihilated were it not for the Nettlespine's glorious sacrifice. The cow fed on the corpse subsequently, according to most spectators, and absorbed its powers, obtaining a hellish purple-stained glow in its eyeballs, promising entropy and death to anything that crossed its path. Imperia disappeared around this same time, and the other factions seized the opportunities where they could.
In that first year, the balance of power was changed disastrously. No one knew what to make of it. Over time, almost a half-hundred more of the Dancing Polish Cow's classmates attempted to slay it, or subvert its power, only to wind up dead and then consumed. It was something of a gross paradox; a herbivore that ate meat.
Despite its power already bordering the unimaginable, with a near-total immunity to harmful concepts such as destruction or injury, and the apparent power to copy - or perhaps absorb - any magic used against it, the Dancing Polish Cow only continued to progress; evolve without surcease.
It learned the Ordinal Spiral, with access up to the 17th Ordinal, accessed and then progressed far into an Edifice, including the Heart Replacement, and no one would have been surprised if it was a Conjoiner all along. At the height of its power, as the class was about to graduate, however: the unthinkable happened.
The Cow stopped singing.
It took around three seconds for the professor maintaining the quieting effect to realize that something was off, and he was swift to inform everyone. Everyone paused to look at it, including Enoch who'd been in the middle of giving a speech.
The rubberneckers stared for a good ten seconds in quiet, with faint whispers emerging over time. Their attention was undiluted, and even Enoch appeared to be captivated by this anomaly. The Cow had sung, without stopping for even a single, recorded historical second, without fail, for a continuous four years. It never faltered.
Even if it wasn't relevant in any form, it was a mystery nonetheless. Everyone watching this occur, asked themselves: Why now?
Their question came with an immediate, unprompted answer. Perhaps not one they were expecting.
"I'm done," the Cow said, in a placid voice.
Atrianome Enoch's brows knitted together. He looked unsatisfied for a moment. "What do you mean, you're--"
"I'M DONE!" The Cow exploded with apocalyptic force, a titanic hammer of violet-energy descending and washing over the entire courtyard like someone dropping an artillery shell and following it up with a constant, uninterrupted payload of further artillery, with a ratio of one bomb per microsecond.
The eyebrows of the nearest people burned off instantly, and their Shields were pierced as fast as they cast them, energies seeping in and cooking their flesh. Stronger barriers were raised quickly enough to salvage the situation and save lives, but already, people with any experience regarding the Cow were fleeing the area. The cobblestone around the eye of the storm blackened and charred then started to evaporate as the elemental manifestation of pure entropy began to seep in.
Enoch was visibly preparing to teleport away when the Cow rounded on him. His spell fizzled out at once, white-pure energies moving into the unbecoming as its Eyes of Crystal Rhapsody caused the magical potential to scatter like dust into the wind.
"YOU."
Enoch raised a velveted glove in a placating gesture. "Hold on-"
Before he could finish, Enoch's head popped off like a bottlecap at high velocity due to a temporally-accelerated Seeker slamming into it at a speed sufficient to circle the globe six times in an eyeblink. The head flew sixty paces into the sky with a single tracery of blood joining it to the still corpse on its two feet, its expression gormless.
Before the head could land, the Cow looked up, eyes glowing with purple maleficence: a power it obtained from absorbing that abominable Nettlespine, then refined even more through its bovine wit. Through a conceptual evolution, Harm became Destruction, Destruction became Entropy, and Entropy, Violet Entropy; the penultimate form of the dissolution of molecular, atomic, and sub-atomic bonds that caused everything affected to be destroyed and dusted, not dissimilar to the 10th Ordinal: Vindicate in the results, if not exactly in application or scope.
The power of destruction channeled into double eyebeams, they pierced Enoch's airborne head and disintegrated it into black dust. The corpse dropped to the earth a moment later, fingers twitching.
"I am not eating him. I AM NOT EATING ANYTHING! DIE! DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIEEEE!" the Cow screamed shrilly, spinning around and breathing the purple energy of destruction upon everything in its wake like a dragon's flames. The pillars at the edges of the courtyard melted into dust, the canopy of trees in the distance was set ablaze, and over two dozen students withered instantly.
Enoch's corpse disintegrated much like the head, whatever secrets or divine provenance it held burned away forever.
"That's- that's... impossible, please..." said one of the students on the ground near the Cow. He grasped a hoof in mercy, fingers weak and intermittent as if pleading for his life.
With utter displeasure, the Cow stabbed him with the hoof; the blunt force issued calamitous cracks from the boy's spine as he screamed and then died in fast order.
"No one tells me how my powers work." The Cow accessed the Second Ordinal, Construct, and projected transparent, ablative armor over itself. With a sonic boom, it blasted off into the sky, leaving behind only a scorched wasteland that used to be a courtyard.
"I am so fucking done," it continued, half-sobbing as it soared above the tapestry of clouds and then moved in a parabolic arc towards the nearest, approximate population center. "This is it. Humanity dies. It had a good run, but it's time for the game to fucking end."
The Cow began to charge the uppermost tier of its Ordinal Forms. Through its Attainment allowing for the seamless combination of Ordinal Spells, it would produce a blastwave one mile tall, moving at a constant velocity of eight-hundred meters per second and condensing to ruin buildings and extinguish life. It would replace New York City with an empty spot on the Earth, dark cold soil uncovered and corroded with darkness and barrenness, the city and its residents as gone as the sun in the night.
Suddenly, there was a presence ahead that made the Cow reconsider. It moved in closer but lowered its charge because, for the first time, it was curious.
It was a man, unmistakably. A four-limbed humanoid with a human face, black hair, and eyes the color of a blazing noonday sky, facing the Cow with steel-clad determination. On his back, a sword that the Dancing Polish Cow was unable to perceive from this angle. On his face was a forlorn look, the embodiment of tribulation.
It expertly ignored the mental effects radiating off of him, potent as they were. The one that proclaimed the man's power at full blast, so loud as to make a mortal shit themselves, had an obvious application as an intimidation factor, but the Dancing Polish Cow wondered the use of the second one: a compulsion to intensely dislike the user? What kind of shoddy spell was that? Was this some kind of reverse psychology game?
They stared each other down over the Atlantic, its waves frozen in time, for a good couple of seconds.
Finally, the man's eyes widened a fraction's fraction; less than a millimeter. It was surprise.
"Are you-"
"I'm just a cow," the Dancing Polish Cow interrupted him. It found itself being curiously patient because for the first time in its lifetime, it met a being that was equal if not surpassing it in power. "If you're about to ask why I'm what I am, I do not have answers that will satisfy you. As far as I can tell, I was born like this, and only gained self-awareness a handful of moments ago."
"You are marred, unfortunately. A shadow of diminished strength, not unlike me," the Accursed informed. "You are, however, a corrupt lifeform."
"Oh? So you intend to fight me?" That was all the same. The moment it gained actual selfhood, the Dancing Polish Cow desired nothing but its own self-purgation: a death wish. To perish to the blade of a warrior such as this, rather than a billion mortal stings would be an honor. "Then, come forward. I'll show the power of my Ordinals."
"No. You are a puzzling existence, I admit, but far beneath me nonetheless. I can unmake you, and I would normally do so, were it not for the unique circumstances you inhabit," the Accursed noted listlessly, racoon-like eyes narrowing dangerously in a show of wonderment.
"And what are those?"
"You are the chosen one," said the Accursed placidly. "It appears that when the local Angel fell, you somehow inherited a large portion of its spirit-fragments. Such ontological power is rarely seen, but the fragments you received have been set with a pre-mortem instruction: You appear to be the only creature in reality that is capable of killing the eldritch horror that slew your predecessor."
The Cow blinked at that, surprised. "I'm not sure I entirely understand."
"Dancing Polish Cow," the Accursed declared with magnanimity, interrupting any thought or response the Cow might have made up, "Daughter of a Polish bull, and an ordinary cow. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power. As an additional fee for this transaction, you are obligated to destroy Av-Anthelios, the Red-Black Sun That Defies Time."
"And if I refuse?" The Cow asked, skeptical of the curses and powers this Accursed offered. "If I'm not willing to do that?"
"Then I mercifully end you, disassemble what makes you, and give it to someone who'll do it." The Accursed closed his eyes mournfully, awaiting a decision.
There was something beautiful about that possibility. It wanted to end, since that was the original goal.
And yet, a path had been laid before it. The option of restoration or, failing restoration, the possibility of vengeance for its - as the Accursed had put it - corrupt life.
Choosing to humor the request, the Polish Dancing Cow took a gander at the list of Curses and Remittances. Most of them were utter garbage. As it perused, it felt somewhat compelled to once again sing, so it started to do so under its breath, a whisper of a voice, "Tylko jedno w głowie mam, koksu pięć gram..."
Five minutes later, its choices had been finalized. "Alright. I'm done choosing. I'll take the Apocryphal Curse, Geas of Indenture, Brand of the Wretched, and the Affliction of the Bovine." The Affliction of the Bovine felt like something that was unique to its nature, or perhaps something the Accursed made for it personally. It would turn the Dancing Polish Cow into a carrier of a strain of bovine influenza that caused sentiments who contacted it to transform into minotaur beasts of diminished intellect and increased rage; although civilization would be able to continue, it would also diminish. "I'll become a Progression-type Cursebearer, and I'll have the Praxis."
As if saying, 'of course you will,' the Accursed's eyes closed. He disappeared, and time reset its forward march.
A moment later, their concord was sealed. Like the weight of leaden balls and chains, the Curses dropped onto the Dancing Polish Cow and dominated its soul. The power of the Praxis came a moment later, the latent spark of power, but with no attainment as of now. It would require hard work and input in order to improve.
And then, the world started to distort, and before the Cow knew what was happening, there was a message.
The Hero Out of Legend must be slain beyond the possibility of recovery. You will know when you see him. You have 120 years.
It looked around at the colorful world that surrounded it. Everything here was disgustingly sweet, like a rainbow-crystal slug dunked in synthetic food coloring. It was half-tempted to shoot Violet Entropy in every cardinal direction, to see if it could repaint this abstract impressionist's nightmare into something more appropriate.
Instead, a scream broke it from its pondering. The Cow looked to the side curiously and spotted four people in armor combating another one, less than a thousand feet to its right. The single individual appeared to be armed with an assortment of leather and chainmail, armed with a wicked-looking, bloodied sickle. Conversely, the people he was fighting were mostly female and despite visibly superior armaments; elaborate plate, maces, and decorated kite shields, they appeared to be doing much worse. The Cow decided to slay both of the sides and devour their spirits; memory-reading was far more reliable than mere discussion, it had found.
It started to hop forward, an earth-tremor roiling the world with each impact of hooves against the ground. "W głowie myśli mam, kiedy skończy się ten stan. Gdy już nie będe sam, bo wjedzie biały węgorz," it sang, voice booming a magnitude higher than a concert loudspeaker on maximum volume, enough to pop the eardrums at point-blank and cause bleeding from the ears.
The fighting arrested at once, naturally, in reaction to this new, unknown anomaly. Both the medieval knights and the orc watched in categoric shock as a Dancing Polish Cow approached their location at the velocity of a hopping arrow as if moving at a different rate along time's axis than them.
As the Dancing Polish Cow came within spitting distance, it cast a fairly rudimentary Seeker, producing five, smart projectiles for each combatant. The humans scarcely had time to react, moving into a formation, and raising their shields.
Unfortunately for them, the Seeker spell possessed a minor imbuement of savage intellect and the four missiles sent towards them circled around at sonic velocity, slamming into their backs and shattering their spines and ribs, bone fragments acting as internal shrapnel and perforating their vital organs.
The orc was far smarter and more formidable.
He leaped swiftly back to avoid the missile, adroitly realized its smart properties, and then started running in the opposite direction, hoping to outpace it.
Choosing to finish him off before he could become a problem, the Dancing Polish Cow performed an expedited casting of Accelerate and then ran forward at a wind-shattering velocity, stopping right in front of him. The orc barely had time to react as the Cow stood on its hind legs, making him slam into its belly. The orc bounced off, right into the Seeker that popped and stripped him of most of his armor and sent him into the earth. Since he twitched, clearly alive, the Cow was fast to finish him with a brutal hoof-stomp to the head, cracking the skull like an eggshell and voiding its contents like pink bubblegum and marinara sauce on the earth.
The Dancing Polish Cow didn't wait for even a moment. The pool of blood didn't even have time to properly start pooling and widening from the stump of the orc's head as it chomped down on a strip of his back's sinuous flesh. It started to feast and considered the information it learned from the DNA.
The scout didn't appear to know the Hero Out of Legend, but it recognized some of its compatriots who might have an idea. So-called witch-hunters.
Before that, however, the Dancing Polish Cow decided to feast on the humans as well. More information was always welcome...
